Defense Policy

What will it take for the Air Force and Pentagon to move faster on space?

DefenseNews: The Department of Defense is, once again, exploring possible ways to reform its space acquisition system to shrink the time it takes to deliver new capabilities to space.

An DoD memo. first reported by Defense One and independently obtained by Defense News, proposes several changes, such as creating a combatant command for space and restructuring the Space and Missile Command Center (SMC). The memo was delivered to Congress March 1.

Air Force SMC and the Rapid Capabilities Office currently manage about 90 percent of the Defense Space portfolio, including early missile warning satellites, position, navigation and times assets and space launch systems. According to the document, Pentagon officials are concerned that the current product-aligned approach to space acquisition leads to truncated and stovepiped thinking that fails to consider the space system enterprise as a whole.

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